The Way We Work
by wordspank
Summary: It takes Caroline a little more time to say "I love you".


Note 1: Prompt #025: Instance. Not AU, but none of this is canon. Sniff.

Note 2: Also wrote this a while ago, on my AO3.

Rating: R/NC-17  
Warning: Sex

* * *

I.

The first time is a brief outburst that he isn't even conscious of. "You found it, damn!" Kol scoops up the gleaming onyx gems with both hands and they rain back down into the pot, clattering. "I love you!" he laughs, and when the last of the stones leave his palms, he threads his hands through her hair and pulls her forward to peck her on the forehead.

Caroline recoils, visibly offended and amused. He feels her trying to worm out of his grasp, pushing his shoulders back, but he's too chuffed about his discovery to care. All this time, and the key portion of his spell has been sitting in her room for ten years as a decorative piece, next to the bevy of cosmetics splayed across her dresser.

"Now," she says, folding her arms impatiently. "You have to help _me_."

Kol can only respond with a saccharine, "Anything you want, darling."

* * *

II.  
"Don't you know how much I love girls that are trouble?" Kol tilts her chin upwards and anticipates a scowl. From such a pretty face too. "Especially you. I'm partial to blondes."

She delivers as expected. "You're insane," Caroline swats his hand away and rolls her eyes when he pretends she's inflicted a little damage.

"Why are you mad at me?" he asks. "Year after year, you threaten my life one second and beg me for favours the next." This is probably what they did to Klaus, but the only difference is that Kol doesn't give as much of a shit about these people, unless they can do something for him. He doesn't need their approval, neither is he interested in their friendship. Except maybe for this one, if you can call it that.

"You owe me."

"I've already paid that in full. Many times over." Kol tilts his head and raises his brows. "Care to repay me? I've got plenty of ideas how."

Annoyed, she lets out a frustrated groan and throws her fists down. "Forget I asked-"

"Admit it," he cuts her off quickly, "You like it when I flirt with you." It's delightful to watch the colour creep into her neck. She's so fun to tease. "I'm not opposed to you flirting back."

Caroline steps forward, closing the distance between them quite suddenly, and Kol finds his breath hitching at the first whiff of her scent. "You'd never be able to handle me," she challenges. It's like she's actually daring him to. "I will ruin you."

"Yeah? Ruin?" Kol winds a gold lock over her ear. "I'd love to see you try." He knows how to make women kiss him, but Caroline doesn't seem to be like other women. He's pulling every trick in the book and the tension is practically hissing and popping with electricity, but she isn't going for it at all; it boggles him that he wants to grab her instead. Just grab her, and take her. That doesn't sit well with him, because, well, it's so _different._

"I don't have to try," her eyes scan his face and drop to his lips. "You're already knee-deep in it." Then she backs off with a taunting smile. "Can we get back to business?"

It's too late, he thinks to himself. She's right. It will be soon be the end of him.

* * *

III.  
They have an argument. It doesn't matter what it's about, because it's always about something ridiculous, and something petty, and when egos get in the way, the air practically crackles with a sort of confounding hatred for the other person's every part of being, living and existing. It only takes a spark.

Kol's voice is raised, and normally Caroline would be slightly afraid of the danger in his tone, but she would never let anyone make her feel like she didn't do enough when she gave up _everything._

"Well, I'm the one who's feeding off the scraps of my brother!" says the older vampire, incredibly aggressive in his frustration, but the moment it slips out he covers his face with both his hands in instant regret and horror at himself.

Caroline stares at him, and there aren't enough ways for her to tell him how much that_ hurt_ except to wear it plain and simple on her face. She doesn't have any more words, no more defences, no more shields. She purses her lips and turns back to reach for her purse on the kitchen table, not caring that they're not close to being half done with thrashing it out.

Not even his trailing apology registers. By now, everything is heartfelt. Everything is a plea on his part to reverse the last ten minutes.

"Caroline." The words hit a wall. "Caroline!" Kol rushes forward, but she has already decided that it's done. She's done. "I_ love_ you," she hears him say. "I love you."

At first, there's a silence, the sort of quiet that vibrates with the thoughts and feelings associated with words like those. But Caroline is tired, and she's sore, and on a different day she might have walked up to him and kissed his mad, loudly barking mouth of trivial opinions because she wants to return his affections the same way he would freely give them to her.

Today isn't that day.

She's got half a mind to look at how earnest he is about it, curious at the integrity of it, wanting to find out if it's as honest as it sounds. But she knows that the moment she looks him in the eyes, those dark, deep, wildly captivating eyes that bear the soul of a man that she _might_ love back, her resolve would crumble, whether he _really_ means to say it or not.

She can't let that happen, so she takes a tiny little breath to swallow her heart back down into her chest and leaves Kol.

* * *

IV.  
Caroline looks at him for a very long time, because she recognizes Kol so well. Everything about him is still the same. Every hair, every laugh line on his face and sinew of his arms – he is unchanged and ageless. He seems wiser than ever, under the bravado and cocksure stance, standing tall. Comfortable. Just the way she remembers him.

He looks right back at her with the exact fondness of the many years ago when he kissed her, she slapped him and he reeled in her entire body by the waist to be close to her, to make her feel close to him. He wanted to be closer, she could tell, but he gave her time. And that's what he gave her again after she left him; time, and space. Two of the most important and difficult things she needed to have. She had to keep away from him.

It still hurts just as much as it did then. That's just from _looking_ at him.

"Caroline." Why is his voice so tender? Why does he look happy? Doesn't he know that she's not interested in socialising?

She doesn't reply. She's afraid that if she speaks, everything will come spilling out in an uncontrollable fury. Her body wants to purge the feelings badly, so she balls her fists and tames the questions about him that zip through her head – has he moved on, is he seeing anyone, is she just another notch in the belt, does she tell him how she's gone through dates with boys and men and guy friends and even friends who are girls? For many years, she thought she was fine, powering through time and thinking she was okay with him. She thought she forgave him.

But now he's standing right in front of her and she really wants to punch him in the face.

So she does.

"Jerk!" Caroline cups her knuckles, breathing hard. She goes in for another throw, but she's forgotten how strong and fast he really is - Kol clamps down on both her forearms in an attempt to slow her down. "Get your grubby vampire hands _off_ me."

She struggles, trembling, but she's only released when Kol decides to release her. It pisses her off more than she means to allow.

Kol's hand rises to touch the nasty wound on his cheek, thanks to her ring, then unflinchingly tests the texture of his own blood between his fingers. "Did that feel good?"

Caroline sees the dark crimson streak travel downward like a lone tear. "Yeah," she says, and feels satisfied knowing that he let her scratch his pretty face. It's quite the act of submission, for someone as vain as he. And it was surprisingly exhilarating to hit him for all the shit he said to her.

"Good. Ready to make nice now?" he says, this time being more gentle about his touch when his hand slides down her shoulder.

She shakes her head, but the residual feelings bubble at having her hand held again . "No," she says. "I don't forgive you."

"Let me work for it, then. I'm going to take you out." Kol reaches downward to slip her ring off of her finger. "On a weapons-free date." Caroline frowns at the word _date_.

"I don't want to be civilised," she feels his fingers lace through hers, and she doesn't fight it.

"We can be as uncivilised as you want afterwards." He gives her a cheeky smile. "Anything for the woman I love."

She doesn't believe him, but she decides not to deck him in the face for it. That's the grown up thing to do, right ?

* * *

V.  
Fingers clenched, eyes shut. Kol enjoys her every open-mouthed sigh of approval, the smell of her in his head and her skin against his cheek. All he needed to do was to brush his lips against that tiny spot on her neck; then she let him drop to his knees so he could tug her panties down. Hell if he was going to stop there.

He warms her with his touch, and she's _wet,_ so wet that he pants before he eases a finger into her, admiring the way she clutches his hair when he crooks it just so. Caroline is his, all his now, and Kol will gladly drown in her, surround himself with her, spend forever between her legs because he _loves_ her. Completely. Absolutely.

Why she doesn't respond to his proclamations is beyond him, but he's not about to give her an ultimatum about it. Not when she's never rejected him outright. Until then, he won't give her up. He doesn't know how.

Caroline tightens in pleasure as Kol parts her nether lips for a taste. He watches her every reaction carefully with the glide of his tongue or the twist in his wrist; sometimes her whole body responds (when he's worrying her clit and thick fingers pump into her) and sometimes the dirtiest things leave her mouth (especially with the teasing, he's a "motherfucker"). Either way, it gets him so fucking horny by the time she comes that he doesn't even let her catch her breath before he hikes her legs around his waist and slides his cock into her. Kol buries his nose in her hair, but then decides to look at her face as he uses force to draw back his hips and find his way back into her again. Feels like home.

"You're beautiful," he says, and he means it so much that it aches inside of him, despite it sounding like the cheesiest thing. What matters is that he's earnest about it, that he's so very sure she needs to hear this from him at its most raw. His forehead presses against hers and he feels her pleasure ringing in his ears, painted on his lip, mingled sweat and sex making a sure and utter mess of his heart and head - it's so intimate looking into her eyes and connecting, saying everything without a single word. She's reading him, and seeing him, and she's certainly confused about it, but she won't let it get in the way of enjoying the moment of Kol finding that sweet rhythm and surrendering to her kissing.

"I love you." It's barely a whisper, but both of them hear it. Caroline tugs his hair and trembles with him in shared satisfaction, not ignoring that he's said it, but not quite knowing what to say back to him. Fifty years they have known each other and not once has she seemed to believe him when he tells her this – and it's not like he shouts it from the rooftops everyday, because it takes a lot for him to form the syllables with their fullest, truest meaning intact – but that's fine. Kol will keep telling her, until she knows it like she knows the sun will rise in the morning as sure as it sets at dusk. Until she knows that getting her back was the best damn thing he did in the last half-cenutry.

"That was intense," she says, smiling. Kol pours all his feelings into a kiss and makes her feel it to her bones. Again, she casts him a look, but one of realisation. And then she presses her lips to his.

Kol carries her to his bedroom and intends to prove how much he means to love her.

* * *

VI.  
Caroline's eyes are lit with sincerity, silver-flecked blues glimmering at him.

_I love you._

There's weight, a conviction, in the way she says it. It's the first time he's ever heard the words leave her lips and he suspects that it's been stewing a while - it took some years, but here she is.

Here they are.

First he takes her hand, thumb brushing over the mild peaks of her knuckles; she looks at him with uncertainty. Kol doesn't have to say it back for her to know how he feels about her, but he can sense that she's more worried about where this puts them in the grand scheme of things.

There is no scheme. They're immortal. When you hold eternity in your hands, everything else seems finite. There's no use subscribing to social conventions when their concepts - marriage, for example - warp with time.

Caroline is well acquainted with this. All vampires beyond their first century will know all about scepticism and being disillusioned; you come to terms with not having children, being trapped in the same phase of life forever, resigned to aimless wandering, always searching for that one thing that grants you purpose. What more with the next century. And the one after that.

But Kol has had a constant to anchor him, and she's sitting right in front of him. Never been surer about this.

He leans forward and takes both her hands in his.

"It's about bloody time."


End file.
